Chasing Shadows

Enjoy these excerpts from my book, Chasing Shadows.

Excerpt from Prologue

"...The year 2000 seemed an appropriate time to begin my journey into the past. It was almost one hundred years since my grandmother had left the country of her birth and I felt compelled to travel to the place where her story began. But first, I needed to sift through those childhood memories, searching for any clues, however vague, that would help me take that first step..."

Excerpt from Chapter 1 – Galicia, 1886

"...It was dark when Bernarda heard the wheels of the trap rattle down the cobbled street. Micaela had been persuaded to eat a little bread and cheese and had gone to bed exhausted. They had left a night-light burning in her room and Ramon had fallen asleep on the floor outside the bedroom door, reassuring her that she would be safe during the night.

  Bernarda glanced anxiously around the kitchen, listening to the familiar noises from the stable across the street as her husband fed the pony and bedded it down for the night. She and Ramon had worked hard. At first sight the room looked cosy and welcoming in the candlelight and the glow from the fire. The furniture was sturdy and had not suffered too much damage. But although they had rearranged the remaining pots and dishes, spacing them out on the shelves, there were too many gaps. Bernarda knew that Jose senior's sharp eyes would soon notice something was wrong. She was worried that he would want revenge for the threat to his family's safety. It would do no good to try to hunt the men down, she thought. It would be better for all of them, particularly Micaela, if they could put the whole distressing incident behind them and carry on with their lives as before..."

Excerpt from Chapter 4 – Galicia, Summer 2000

"...It was too early in the afternoon to go back to the hotel and, in any case, I felt too restless. It was impossible to explain even to myself, but since first setting foot on Galician soil I had been driven by an inner voice prompting me, 'Don't give up. Try here. Go there.'

  With so little material evidence to go on, it appeared we were wandering aimlessly. Yet I was convinced these places had played their part in my family's history, even if I would never be able to prove exactly how..."

Excerpt from Chapter 7 – Galicia, 1902

"...It was almost dawn when Jose eventually arrived home. The storm had ended as quickly as it had begun, but Jose's shirt and trousers were still damp, clinging to his skin in the chill of the night air. He stole quietly into the tiny living room and started in alarm when the glow from the fire revealed his father standing by the window... Micaela was lying on the sofa, Luis had covered her with a shawl and she had fallen into a restless sleep, exhausted by the evening's events.  As Jose began stammering out an apology, their voices woke her. She rushed to Jose's side – the recriminations that had been ready on her lips hours before, replaced with a prayer of gratitude for his safe return.

   'Madre de Dios, gracias, gracias.'

Jose was exhausted and when Micaela took his arm to draw him nearer to the fire he began to shiver. She saw him glance towards the bureau, its open drawer pointing like an accusing finger, and wished she had closed it before his return..."

Excerpt from Chapter 9 – Liverpool, 1906

"...It was his colouring that made him stand out among the sea of dark heads bent over their food, the hissing gas lamp throwing a halo of light around his thick silver hair. Micaela's glance was sympathetic as the elderly man reached towards the platter of bread in the centre of the table. Surely he was too old to be a seafarer, she mused. Even her grandfather's hair had not been this colour. Yet, there was something in the man's movements that belied his age.

  The seaman raised his head, as if aware of her silent scrutiny, and the skin beneath her high-collared blouse, already damp from the heat of the room, prickled with embarrassment. He was not an old man. Certainly not a young man...but nevertheless, a man still in the prime of life. His hair was not silver as she had first thought, but blond..."

Excerpt from Chapter 15 – Liverpool, Spring 1933

"...No. She didn't want to go to the pictures tonight. It was bad enough not being able to afford a honeymoon. Just for a moment, [her] imagination swept her from the cold comfortless house to a posh hotel.

  The Adelphi would have done, even though it was on the doorstep. Last night a big St Patrick's Night Eve celebration – a banquet followed by a ball – had been held there. Standing outside Lewis's, just across the street, she had watched the guests arriving in all their finery, the hotel's footmen rushing down the steps to open their cab doors. She had wondered how much the tickets cost – probably enough to keep a working family for weeks.

  But [she] would have been just as happy to be celebrating at home – home in Upper Frederick Street. She didn't think of the flat as home yet. But she could picture number 85. The fire blazing away, food piled high on the big, square table in the middle of the room – her mam had gone over the top, hoarding pounds of Maypole butter over the past few weeks – the extra, borrowed, chairs pushed against the walls. Her mam would have given everyone a glass of wine to get them going, thinking she was just a bit late...

  When everything was ready, Micaela tried to work out how long it would be before her daughter and new son-in-law arrived. She knew the ceremony would not take as long as it would in Church. Apparently in these 'register offices' there was no priest, no nuptial mass, not even any music. How could it be called a marriage, she thought, without the blessing of the church? Thirty years she had been in the country, and she still couldn't get used to their ways..."

Excerpt from Chapter 18 – Liverpool, Autumn 1939

"...I was only a couple of months old when war was declared and we joined the mass exodus of mothers and children out of Liverpool. We were evacuated to Maghull. This was only about seven or eight miles from the city centre, but was considered safe.  The family was split up...Dad was still living and working in the city centre, visiting us whenever he had the time...But he wanted his family together again, underneath one roof.

  We were only away for three weeks, perhaps not the shortest evacuation on record, but surely one of them. Dad found a little house to rent, far enough away from the docks and the city centre to be as safe from Hitler's bombs as Maghull was thought to be...My parents now had an entire house to themselves instead of 'rooms'. [It had a] pocket handkerchief-sized garden to the front, and the luxury of [a] long, narrow garden at the rear, Mum always described the house as 'jerry-built' - two-up, two-down, each room no bigger than ten feet square. There was no hall, only a tiny lobby, or vestibule, and the steep, closed-in staircase rose up  from the kitchen, ending on a landing only three feet square.  We had an outside lavatory, tacked onto the back of the house like an afterthought. We also had the luxury of running hot water and a plumbed in bath, although the latter was in a cubbyhole accessed through the back bedroom. There was just enough room to squeeze between the bath and the wall to turn on the taps. Fortunately, we were a thin family..." 

Excerpt from Chapter 19 – Liverpool, 1941

...'Why didn't you warn me?' Micaela asked, the words bursting out before Pilar had time to fully open the door to her mother one murky November afternoon. 'Am I stupid, like a child, not to be told the truth?'

  Shocked at the hysterical state she was in, Pilar sat her mother down in front of the fire. 'Wait there a minute, Mam. I don't know what you're talking about.' Stepping across the small living room to close the door so that her youngest daughter wouldn't run out, she was surprised to see her brother-in-law just outside the gate. Turning back to her mother, she asked 'What are you doing here with George - in a taxi? When did he get home from sea?'

  George was paying off the taxi driver. A small group of nodding, whispering women, arms folded, watched the proceedings from the pavement. A taxi was a rare sight in their street.

  'Oh, no,' Pilar muttered to herself, thankful Will was at work and the two older kids were at school, 'this will give the neighbours something else to gossip about...' 

Excerpt from Chapter 20 – Santiago de Compostela, Summer 2002

...We set off after an early breakfast, my heart beating in a now familiar, irregular rhythm. Would there be a result, or did I face yet another disappointment?

  There were two clerks on duty when we entered the office.

  'Hola. Buenos dias.' I attracted the attention of the clerk who had attended to us at the beginning of the week and repeated my request.  In my naivety, I was expecting either a straightforward 'No,' or the magic 'Si,' with the long sought after document being produced with a flourish. My hand moved forward involuntarily, itching to take possession.

  I suppose I should not have been surprised. Whereas my days had been filled with thoughts of him, in his official capacity of course, the clerk had other things to think about. Now that I was back in the office, he remembered me. Now that I was standing in front of him, he would begin the search I thought had already taken place...The clerk brought register after register to the counter: 1879, then 1878, 1880, 1881. His fingers traced the columns of names as he tried to find Micaela Vilarelle, slowing shaking his head at each failure. I wanted to turn the books around so that I could see the names properly. My back was aching. My legs were aching. I wanted to snatch the ledgers from him and shut myself away in a quiet room to carry on the search myself. But it was obvious that he wasn't going to let them out of his possession. I didn't find out why until some time later... 

Excerpt from Chapter 25 – Santiago de Compostela, Winter 1877

'Please! I know it is difficult, but you must try not to scream. When the pain comes bite on this cloth – here. For everyone's sake, no-one must hear you.' Bernarda gently bathed the girl's brow. She was trying hard not to show how worried she was. If things didn't improve, she knew the doctor would have to be called and all their caution would have been for nothing.

  The room was hot and airless and Bernarda longed to fling open the windows and fill her lungs with the night air, but the shutters were fastened tight. And not just to keep out the November chill. The fire in the bedroom grate, the oil lamps and the candles were throwing flickering shadows on the walls, but no glimpse of a light must be seen from outside the house. Not yet. It was almost one o'clock in the morning. If a neighbour did chance to see a light, they might knock to see if something was wrong. Only when the baby was born would she risk drawing back a shutter very slightly. In the house opposite, her sister would be waiting for the signal to send Jose's two cousins across the road to carry out the necessary arrangements... 

Excerpt from Chapter 27 – Huyton, Liverpool, 1950

Joan stood shivering, still out of breath, in the small kitchen. They had waited half-an-hour for a bus and by the time they were seated safely on the lower deck, her mum was in her usual state of panic, black woollen gloves lying on her knee as she twisted her wedding ring round and round, willing the bus to go faster.

  'We'll be late. Today of all days! They won't be able to wait for me.'

  Joan had tried to reassure her, despite her own fears.

  'It'll be all right mum. I can run ahead when we get off the bus, tell them you're on your way.' And she had run her fastest, thick brown plaits beating a tattoo on her skinny shoulders.

  The kitchen wasn't much warmer than outside. Aunty Bo opened the oven door and lit the gas, but a blast of icy air swept in through the back door each time one of the neighbours walked in...None of them stayed long. A couple of minutes in the front room, then closing the door quietly behind them they would pass back through the kitchen, murmuring a few more words of sympathy before scurrying back to their own firesides. Despite the weather, there was no fire in Little Granny's front room because that was where she was lying in her coffin... 

Excerpt from Chapter 28 – northern Spain, 2003

...Over the previous three years, I had spent my waking – and often my sleeping – hours steeped in thoughts of Micaela and the events that drove her from her homeland...The young girl of my mother's stories, in whose footsteps I had walked in Santiago, had become very real to me – as real as the Little Granny of my own memory...

...I wonder what Bernarda would have thought, if she could have known that one day her great-great granddaughter would come digging out family secrets, unearthing the evasions, half-truths, intrigues she must have worked so hard to conceal. I hope she would have forgiven me...